Be in this life as a traveller

M has come out with some funny things; 'It's not good being a girl, because when you grow up you have to do all the work. No one, mans don't help you.'
Enough said. I should be off to draw up a chores rota now.....

I think it's soon time to properly start teaching M to read, as he's trying to teach himself. The other day I overheard some self-talk (in his teacher voice) while he was playing with some scrabble letters,and S couldn't resist joining in;

M 'Shall we spell some words? C E F'
S 'keff'

S showed a bit of literal translation of Swedish to English the other day. We'd been reading Roald Dahls's *Matilda' which he actually finds interesting as she can do very hard sums. He said 'Matilda could 19 times 14', the 'could' being how you would say 'knew' in Swedish!

Have been trying to remind myself that we are in this world 'as a traveller' and that the material possessions are a test for us. Having anything of value around the house is pointless if you have kids. 2 windows have been broken in the last 6 weeks (only the inner pane of the double glazing so didn't have to rush to get them fixed, the latter is till covered with cardboard', once due to hurling of object in anger, another due to a test-out of a home-made catapult, which obviously passed in terms of power. My IKEA chest of drawers scraped with a shark tooth necklace, one of my bead necklaces broken during a dispute over who should have it, as I say 'don't pull it,it'll snap......'(it had survived being used as horses reins, which I allow as it means H can sit on my back pretending I'm a horse while I lie down getting some relief from my backache). Empty baby oil bottle found has made me worried, and there is still an oily mess around the box on top of the washing machine which I haven't yet dared to approach (nor had time). This morning I found one of my jilbabs had a rather neat rip in the bottom which probably meant someone had taken scissors to it, and I hadn't just tripped on some stairs or something and ripped it myself. No one would admit the crime though. I can usually get them to plead guilty if I promise I won't get cross. (They know I'm not allowed to lie).

H is pulling to stand quite confidently now mashaAllah and shouting 'mamama' quite often. Today she was letting the whole neighbourhood know about her lovely mum, but I hoped no one felt that maybe an abandoned child had been left stranded on the balcony, as she is rather loud!